I forgive my mind for being a cesspool of hellish, existential thoughts this morning. I forgive my mind for being a cesspool of hellish existential thoughts this morning. I forgive my mind…

Ahhhhh… Consider yourself lucky that you are YOU today, and not ME. I woke up CERTAIN that today was gonna be a stellar day! Swaddled in the sheets of luxury, I sipped my tea, decadently read my book, Commitment (the book exploring marriage) and celebrated feelings of relaxation, gratitude and wholeness. Later, after breakfast, I charged into Mykael’s bedroom and announced what a great day it was destined to be! And then, I guess I lost my footing somehow, because the next thing I knew I was writhing in the vicious, salivating jaws of an existential crisis. What the hell? How on earth did that happen? I couldn’t stop thinking about what an immature soul I am, and how many more times I might have to live, as a result. I can barely endure THIS life, let alone ten, a hundred, a million MORE lives. Even if I take new vows of forgetfulness and innocence each time, still, the thought is WAY TOO MUCH for me to bear today. And somehow I thought I could THINK my way out this prime real estate in hell. But the more I thought, the more I felt hopeless, overwhelmed, starkly alone and terrified.

I guess now the trick is to simply step out. Okay. I’m willing to give it the old college try… but first, I just have to say ONE more thing… I know, I know, that is a dangerous proposition. But it is important. Really, I swear. I was noticing my thirst for fame and fortune. I live in this pathetic little construct of scarcity, where I habitually see the lack… lack of money, lack of love, lack of you name it… and I have this sorry little egoic plan for salvation. Some day, somehow, I will become a famous writer. I will feel fulfilled (some day) (maybe…) knowing that my books explode like frivolously ecstatic firecrackers in the minds of the masses, which in turn, explodes ME in a frivolous, ecstatic manner, and for this, I get paid plenty of money to lead a life of financial freedom, inspired philanthropy and continuous, playful expansion.

Not bad, eh? See, my carrots really are the kind that can slice through glass… (I know, I know, that kind of carrot is spelled different…) But then, a barrage of spiritual ideas about our desires being what binds us to this world of illusion, fear and suffering flooded in, and I thought, “fuck fame and fortune, I just want to be DONE here!” But then I started thinking about how pathetic I think renunciates are, when they don’t really feel INSPIRED by the path of renunciation, but they just do it because Buddha did it, and they becomes slaves to a dry, uninspired path of perpetual trying. It seems so inauthentic to TRY and emulate a spiritual leader, as a cop out from blazing your own holy trail. I think all great spiritual leaders courageously blazed their own trails (in cooperation with Missus Almighty, of course). Remember in Herman Hesse’s book, Sidhartha… Sidhartha was following the Buddha for a while, so he had a chance to intimately study Buddha’s hard-core disciples… and they were all so pathetic. They became robotic dorks, investing everything in some hope bound, conceptual twist to which they incessantly milked for every last drop of creamy, less filling dogma.

I am not knocking the path of choosing a spiritual teacher… But “better to do your dharma poorly than somebody else’s well”… Right? So, here I am, fighting my dharma, because I just want to get off the ride while it’s still in motion. Good luck, Athena. That’s why I stepped onto the page with the sole objective of FORGIVENESS. Because that’s about all a sistah can do, when she’s stuck on a horrifying, gut wrenching rollercoaster. Forgive the ride. Forgive myself for somehow BEING on the ride. Forgive the ride operator, forgive my fellow riders, as we shriek and squeal and barf all over each other.

Speaking of barfing all over each other, Mykael and I got in a horrid fight on date night last night. Naturally, we were at Boot and Shoe service. And again, I was all stoked to have a fantastic evening, since we had not spent much time together at ALL for the past two days. The glitch? Well… have you heard that clever-assed saying, “Expectations are premeditated resentments”? Well especially after last night, I attest! But the tricky thing about expectations, is that they seep in like a slow leak, a flooding basement, perhaps. You might be upstairs having the dinner party of the century, all the while… and it’s not till the next morning, when you’re modestly hung over and you have a big mess of dishes still to clean, and you go down stairs and HARK, your LP collection is wet, warped and ruined along with all your photo albums full of photos of grandma and grandpa’s wedding day and their proud bathtub full of nasty moonshine!

Expectations. I had an expectation that we would have DEEP, satisfying, thoughtful, rich conversation over dinner. And I was even prepared to generate it! I had a few prizewinning insights and confessions that I was SURE would serve as a smokin’ kick-off! But each time I spoke one… ummm… they would drift from my mouth like holy smoke and evaporate mysteriously into the shimmering ambiance. Well, it didn’t take me too long to flood and nearly drown in disappointment. But it wasn’t my own for long. I did everything in my power to cram my disappointment down Mykael’s silent throat. It started as an innocent confession. I identified and then verbalized my expectation. Simple, right? Wrong. T’was the recipe for a fierce spat. (I seem to have an entire recipe book full of gourmet spats… if you ever want to whip one up to impress your loved ones, you know who to call!)

Intrinsically, there’s nothing wrong with my boyfriend having a quiet day, right? Of course not. But can you also see that it might sting me to share my innermost thoughts~ I had been cultivating this particular insight for more than… a day~ In my tireless contemplation of partnership, groping for the CORE of my desires, my commitment… I realized that I am nowhere near as good at unconditional love and acceptance as I want to be… and that our relationship is a fertile ground for practicing these invaluable, virtuous spiritual muscles. I felt surprisingly shy expressing this to him… Because it made me feel vulnerable. Then, to be met with silence stung. But I kept stepping back in, sharing more of myself, giving him the benefit of the doubt. I am patient, until, abruptly, I am not.

As soon as the fight turned from an accidental spark to full throttle, licking flames, he was suddenly more than happy to engage with me. WHAT THE FUCK, I thought. How fucking unfair is it, that he isn’t interested in meeting me in the space of my joy and enthusiasm, but as soon as we step into battle and bloodbath, he is right there, shouting back at me. Meanwhile, I am feeling sick to my stomach and can’t bear to eat the gorgeous, artistically steaming pizza before me. This pissed me off. I pointed it out and then BEGGED him to stop talking. He wouldn’t. SO I shifted into eighth gear and DEMANDED with the full force of my being for him to STOP TALKING. He did. And instead he began to CRY! “You are so mean,” he said in a voice of wounded, crumpled defeat

Later, outside the restaurant, he named me “the first person EVER to ‘make him cry in a restaurant’”… Can you believe it??!! Do I get a medal for that, or a death sentence? I’m still not sure. What did I do while he cried? I renounced eating, turned toward him and felt dumbfounded, helpless and sadistically comical. He would not turn toward me. After an eternity of those awkward moments, I turned away from him and slowly finished my slice of pizza and we left in loaded silence.

Outside we picked up where we left off. I hate that. The feelings (pain and rage) suck. They feel humungous and threatening, and I always just want to run away and find a private place to bleed and nurse my wounds. One of Mykael’s most KICK ASS strengths in our relationship is his commitment to getting clear and returning to Love. Left to my own devices (if I was, say, dating myself…), I would do a lot more punishing, dramatic exits and private wound nursing sessions. But Mykael doesn’t roll that way. This is very healing for me. So we stood outside the bookstore in the cool, breezy, waning evening and SOMEhow, miraculously, we found love again. I was having a REALLY hard time letting go and forgiving. WHY? I think because I’m afraid that if I let go so easily, I’ll just be in a vulnerable position to be hurt again. So the prideful, gleaming alternative is to hold on to the pain, glorify it, make it the most real and important thing. Ironic, how holding onto pain is the ego’s remedial solution to not getting hurt again.

??????????

Mykael said he’d accompany me into the bookstore. I still yearned go be alone so I could continue sulking, but this man was relentless. His only commitment was to restoring connection. Fuck, I wanted to fight. But instead, I just gave voice to my resistance to letting go, and in doing so, stumbled upon some holy flecks of freedom. He embraced me and I let myself melt. God, it sure felt better to open than to fight for my right to remain closed.

Later, we had amazing sex. Strange how that works.

I’m gonna find my way out of this crazy labyrinth… any minute now…

P.S.~ I feel SO much better after getting all this out on the page. Peaceful and closer to empty. Hallelujah!!!! My hope is that you find something of yourself here in this poetic tangle of words and can love your ridiculous humanity more as a result. Amen.

I could have sworn that today was going to be an auspicious one. First, when I was doing my kicking laps in the outdoor pool this morning, I heard a chorus of holy voices. Immediately I knew the source of the song~ cedar waxwings, my most favorite bird. (But let me set the record straight, I don’t use the term “favorite” as an absolute term, but only to serve as a vehicle conveying passion, enthusiasm, joy… that whole strain of shimmering feelings.) Have you ever seen a cedar waxwing? They always travel in flocks. Big flocks. They are not big birds, they are not especially small birds. They are compact and sleek. When I gaze upon them, I always feel like I am looking through a soft filtered lens~ you know, the kind they use in the movies when they want to illustrate that someone is falling in love? The object of affection shows up so softened and glowing. Cedar waxwings look like that without even needing the aid of Hollywood special effects! Their feathers are modest shade of tawny earth. On their cheeks they have a soft, circular spray of red, downy feathers, so that they are in perpetual blush! They wear black feathered masks around their eyes like sexy, angelic love bandits. They feast on berry bushes, while singing the praises of Heaven. I don’t see them very often (though I do hear them pretty frequently. Their voices are what birds would sound like if they purred!), so when I do, I know I am blessed.

Then, as I was getting out of the pool, a mallard couple landed gracefully on the surface of the warm, crystalline, chlorinated water. I heard their slick landing as I walked, through the frigid, yawning air to the locker room. Then I heard their goofy voices (Duck voices. Is there anything sweeter???) announcing the presence of Love and I turned to prick posterity’s bubble, not believing what I heard. Yes indeed, they paddled their beautiful, buoyant bodies along the lap lines and my heart tickled so bad it cracked open multiple times, like a whole nest full of duck eggs. I heard myself shriek and squeal.

But now I feel lonely. The ducks were a pair. The cedar waxwings were a flock. Athena is alone. Café 504 is busy. How do I know that I am lonely? It’s this feeling in my heart. A black hole comes to mind when I focus on the sensation. This insatiable hole, from which sadness could ooze like an endless honey stream if I let it. But maybe if I just allow it to be… maybe if I create a new story to surround the sensation. Maybe it is a sensation of sacred vulnerability. Maybe. Maybe it is love. Maybe it is not meant to be filled. This must be what the banks of a raging river feel like. I can just let this feeling pour through my shyly awakening heart. It feels like raw desire. Desire~ the reason that we keep casting our rods out into the future, hoping that a particular delicious, gracious, winged carrot will swim up and bite our line… and then this feeling of outrageous yearning will be quelled and real life will begin.

Real.

Life.

Will.

Begin.

I know I talk about this a lot, this illusion of future happiness… but I am determined to break on through to the other side. I am determined to claim my home right here, right now, make my nest, stake my claim, own my throne. Here. Now. Even with this ache in my heart and this auspicious, wishful fishing pole, perpetually on the hunt for carrots that swim with fishes. Isn’t that a pretty image? Inside my mind is a viscous substance, the offspring of the torrid affair between love and water. Aqua-golden and warm as moonbeam jelly. In it swim schools of slender, flaming orange carrots with iridescent scales and exotic, twinkling eyes. Long, flowing fins that flow like silk scarves blowing in tropical breezes. Who wouldn’t want to fish for carrots as beautiful as that?!?! I bet when I finally find the heaven inside, I’ll see Jesus, Krishna and Saint Theresa chillin’ with forties (peeping out from crumpled brown paper sacs) on the end of a pier, dippin their holy poles into the viscous sea of love potion, waiting for a sacred carrot to bite their golden lines.

I have been setting the alarm on my phone to go off every hour, so that I can affirm today’s course in miracles lesson and sit in sacred silence for five minutes, inviting effulgence into the cracks between my habitual bondage thoughts. While I was sitting in sacred invitation, my phone chimed with the revelatory news of a text message. After five minutes of affirmation that “God, being Love, is also Happiness”, I saw that one of my most stellar (and long lost) friends, Amrita had texted me, informing me that she was in town for the day and would I like to meet up later! I haven’t seen her in over a year. So the cedar waxwings and the ducks did NOT lie after all! Athena too shall be graced with auspicious company today!!! When I am with Amrita, I feel like a shooting star. Or maybe the ticklish blackness giggling uncontrollably as light whizzes anonymously through Her endless body of spacious something.

I said that I would tell you more about Glide Church. But honestly, going to church is no more or less spiritual than any other experience that I have. It is confounding to me how spirituality has become this compartmentalized, teensy patch within our glistening existence. Or how bout those people who ardently declare, “I am not a spiritual person”?!?! As if there is anything else to be! I suppose this is another ingenious tactic used to bind our minds to illusion. I am guilty. I seem to be stuck to the concept that finding the light inside will be something that “happens to me… SOMEDAY”. The quintessential Mother of all carrots! How can it possibly be here now? How can it be here now as I sit in this moderately comfortable chair, my butt becoming flattened and stiff, my heart an empty frame hosting a vast, black hole and my mind relentlessly clawing for an understanding that saves my small fearful life, if even for a split second.

Don’t ask me how, but the Light is here, now. Don’t ask me how, but this is IT. There is nothing more. No, wait, ask me. Ask me how!!! Come on, ASK ME!!! LOVE is how. Mostly I hate when people tell me that. Like my friend Dan. He’s all bent on Love. Like a holy obsession. (As far as obsessions go, that one gets the thumbs up from nine point four out of ten angels… but only two out of eighty seven Popes, believe it or not) And when love lives like an elusive concept far from available to me in any given steaming slice of Now, I feel desperate and frustrated. LOVE? Where? All I feel is X, Y, Z…. What’s love got to do with THAT? But I can feel it right now. This feeling of brimming appreciation for all these divine dream creatures, blind as worms, wriggling about in our outrageous fantasy of separation. Is it enough to just say YES to this feeling of reverence, this outpouring of sweetness?

Spiritual. It does not have to be such a serious word. Spiritual. It is spiritual to breathe. It is spiritual to ache. It is spiritual to laugh, to cry, to yearn, to eat, and CERTAINLY to drink high quality cappuccinos(!!!) to pee and poop, to be a couch potato. Ewwwe, I cringed as I wrote that last one. I am not a fan of couch potatoes. But you know what? Who cares? What I am fond of does not equate to what is spiritual. Even the couch potatoes will eventually re-member this MAGNIFICENT light.

Well, God would have it this morning that I sat myself next to a man from Nigeria, who was chosen at the ripe old age of five to be a catholic priest. You see, I told him my name was Athena. He exclaimed, “The goddess!”

I said, “Yup, wisdom and war, baby… though people conveniently leave out the war part on a very regular basis.” They do. Whenever I tell people my name, the popular response is, “The goddess of wisdom!”

…Yeah, the goddess of wisdom who happens to be carrying a massive shield and sporting a high-fashion warrioress’s helmet… I guess war as we know it is a pretty frightening subject. Better to just pretend it doesn’t exist, eh? But then there’s the quintessence of all wars~ the war we fight inside ourselves every day. The war that the ancient Indian sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita metaphorically addresses. This is the war between the ego and… “The Great Love”, I’ll call it. Yikes. Talking about “religious matters” is a slippery slope, isn’t it? Well, suffice to say, that I like to think that Athena’s stand for imbuing war with wisdom is a courageous stand for the highest, especially in the Holy battle fields that stretch across the interiors of every human heart. At least that’s what THIS Athena stands for. I am committed to cultivating my wisdom and intelligence and using it as a trusty ally in winning the only battle worth fighting. The fight for peace in my heart, in my mind, here and NOW.

But, the crafty philosopher asks, does it HAVE to be a fight? Fighting is the antithesis of peace, ain’t it? After all, war begets war… Maybe, oh Crafty One… but for now, all this devoted warrioress can do is fight this relentlessly chattering, fearful ego machine. My bullets are made of condensed conviction, perseverance. My gun powder is feverish devotion to a vision of something that I can not see with my eyes, but damn it, I know it exists. I know that there is a world within me that is unbounded divine light, and that it is possible to live life unified with this great light. And this silly, frivolous mind that never shuts up and ceaselessly dangles those wicked carrots all up in my sheee-it… You know, the carrots who seduce gullible little me with visions of a future wrought with every shade of wealth, happiness and peace (meanwhile, my heart is tight and trembling)… those carrots that that are designed with state of the art, aerodynamic elusivity…

How many times must I tell myself that this is it?!!??! This is the only moment where happiness and peace are truly at my disposal. Is this good news, or bad news? You decide.

Anyway, a few days ago, I had this epiphany that I would start a research project in which I will visit a different church every Sunday, and blog about my experience. TIME THE FUCK OUT!!! The Nigerian would-be priest just strode up to my table with a handful of large, wet, glistening CARROTS. I am SO FUCKING SERIOUS. Really. I swear. He offered me one. I said no thanks. I said, “Listen, Your Piousness, you take your seductive, crunchy-assed carrots and shove them where the sun don’t shine!!!” No, of course I didn’t say that. I considered taking one, but I didn’t feel like starting my digestion at ten forty three am, so I politely declined, and very jubilantly exclaimed to him that I was writing about carrots as we spoke. This is the man who was just preaching to me about how he didn’t trust faith as far as he could throw a whale-sized carrot.

God, you are SO, SO, SO brilliant! Thank you for the comic relief… I was getting pretty heady this morning… Time in. So I’m excited to explore religion, because I throw the word GOD around with such devotion and gaiety, in the face of a world that is AT WAR AS I TYPE THIS, in the name of GOD. I forget that sometimes. In my little microcosmic, insulated slice of forgetful heaven, “my God is an awesome God”, (as the beloved David Lurey would rapturously sing on occasion). Suddenly I am insatiably curious about what “the masses” are being spoon-fed in all the holy edifices of the bay area… and maybe eventually the country, and the world!!!

I proudly disclosed my blue printed plans for this project to my Nigerian friend nesting at the table next to me… and little did I know that HE had a story. Back in Nigeria, he was sent away to catholic schools from a very early age, so that he could be groomed for the rigorous vocation of Catholic Priest. Good for him, right? Wrong. At age fourteen or fifteen, suddenly the raging river of testosterone knocked him on his ass and he became consumed with lust and curiosity about all things pussy. Woops, I mean, “girls”. Let’s not be lewd here, Athena. Well this was BAD NEWS according to Father So-And-So. My friend was sent to perform “penance”. He informed me that the “English translation” for penance is more equivalent to “torture”. He was sent away to a cloistered “retreat” (more like a “prison”) where he was fed bread and water once a day, slept on a cement slab and commanded to pray for hours on end to be purified of this “demon” called Lust. After months of that, he was permitted return to school. Foolish man, he confessed that penance had in fact not helped the situation, but actually exacerbated it. (No, I don’t really consider this man foolish, I just wrote it for dramatics. Actually, I perceive him to be highly courageous… to stand in his truth in the face of EVERYTHING on the outside negating his experience. That takes some serious balls if you ask me.)

He stayed in this caustic, soul contaminating environment clear up until he was twenty two years old!!! Don’t you think that’s a long assed time to be hanging out in a place that insists you are broken and possessed for wanting to explore your sexuality and speak your truth? I do. And when he left, he straight up FLED. And he said that the “Holy Men” had pumped him all fulla this fear that he was bound to be struck by bolts of lightening hurled by an angry god at any moment. Wow. He said since then, he has been a seeker. Since then, he has been asking a steady stream of questions. They sure tied him in some tight knots. No wonder he don’t dig no faith. To him, faith means believing stupid shit like the Immaculate Conception without question, investigation or the entirely natural shadows cast by healthy doubt. Then we had a laugh, because he flipped over the splayed open book on his table and showed me the title, “The Portable Athiest”.

So this is the world “outside” that I have to contend with, EH? Good to know. Humanity? Are you listening? Take my hand… We’re gonna go on a journey! We’re gonna go on an adventure! We’re gonna skip and frolic through the plethora of churches in this contemporary and diverse world… and hopefully, be able to sip the delish nectar of Love that quivers like a tremulous wishing well at the center of all of them. It’s like panning for gold. Sure, it’s an arduous process, picking out all the rocks, gravel, calcified beliefs and unwieldy clumps of control mechanisms… But then you have ga-ga-ga-GOLD! Ga-ga-ga-GOD!!!! La-la-la-LOVE! A kind of Love that One really has no choice but to brake for, because it is so magnificent, healing, inclusive! That’s what the miners really meant when they exclaimed, “There’s GOLD in them thar hills!!!” They meant there’s god in them thar mountains of human confusion, war and pain… trust me…

The carrot is designed to be unattainable. No, not just my carrot, your carrot, Madonna’s carrot and Obama’s carrot… just about every carrot that the ego dangles before its self (note the diminutive S in the word “self”) in order seduce our blind asses into the promise of future fulfillment. There is good news and bad news about this revelatory disclosure. Which do you want first? No matter because the good news and the bad news are the same news= Our peace and fulfillment can only be found in ONE place and that’s the notorious N.O.W. (Distant cousin to the Notorious B.I.G.!!!)

This is what A Course in Miracles reminded me today. And trust me, I was prime for this reminder, since I have been living most recently in this psycho-emotional prison of missing my ex and perpetually suffering about whether or not I should be in my current relationship, and knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I am missing the mark all together in terms of how I am investing my energy. So as the cliché goes, I was knocked on my ass by a ton of bricks last night when I realized that every single carrot is created equal in its elusivity. Do you get that? Every. Single. Carrot. (Every single carrot is a poem, written on the back of God’s hand…)

So today I am thrown into an existential riptide. The rug has been ripped out from beneath my delusional, smarmy feet (God love ‘em). Now I wonder why I am even bothering to write… Why do anything? I guess I just do my best to recognize my true and natural state of peace, contentment and divine love and bring that to each word. To each letter of this crafty-assed alphabet. But the trouble is that I don’t feel particularly fluent in the language of peace… So now what? I must have plenty to forgive. In A Course in Miracles they say that forgiveness is the way to clear internal space so that One can find the wicky-wicky wicked light inside.

I feel tired. Can I forgive myself for feeling tired? I feel so often tired… It doesn’t feel okay. And here’s the real beef of the matter~ if I surrender to the moment and the light and this benevolent creature named Peace… Will I still want to be a writer? I’m afraid nothing of this world will matter anymore and I won’t give a rat’s monkey about worldly success, pursuits of the small s self. I am afraid to let go of my ambitions, or what will be left? Who will I be?

Hopefully a Saint. That’s something I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you that when I retire as a writer, probably in my sixties or seventies, I plan to become a saint. The quintessential career for the “golden years”, if you ask ME. Mykael called me a saint in training last night. I didn’t want to admit how good that felt. Do you ever do that? You know, when somebody says something that stabs the vein of one of your most potent hopes or dreams and inside you want to shriek with joy or ejaculate in some form or another… but for some reason, you hold it in… Well, I do that. So there I was, exploding inside as I considered that I truly WAS a saint in training. And on the outside I only smirked. Silly girl. Then I realized that it is hella likely we are ALL saints in training, here on planet Earth. That turns me on. When push comes to shove, it’s true~ we get to choose how we perceive this world of illusion. And besides, I sure can’t find any evidence to the contrary of our collective [dormant] aspirations of sainthood…

Oh, now… Aren’t you tired of fighting against this beast we call “Religion”? Really. That gratuitous fight is so five minutes ago. We know better than to need to compartmentalize Love, Source, Peace, Oneness. For God’s sake, people, get over it. I say this to those of you who are getting hung up on a saint being a title affiliated with busted-assed churches… You know who you are~ those of you who make a modest career out of being sure to assert that you are “Spiritual”, NOT “Religious”. (And if you ask me, those busted-assed churches are totally awesome, as long as a seeker enters with the pure intention of communing with the One, opening their heart. Who bloody cares what name we give It?!?!) According to dictionary dot com, one definition of saint, the one that I am referring to, is:

“A person of great holiness, virtue, or benevolence”.

So it’s not a very far fetched idea to consider that we are all here co-participating in this dream with a shared core intention of realizing our intrinsic holiness, right? Maybe it doesn’t always SEEM that way, but honestly! Where has seeming ever gotten us in the first place? Pretty far from Home. And most of us *seem* to want to imagine that we are far from home… so power to us. Power to this multiplicity of saints in training! Rumor has it that time is just a figment of this same fractured imagination who has invented the wacky myriad of fantastical carrots, so take as much time as you please, Your Holiness.

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